Not really. There's a hover test vid uploaded in 2016 but they cheated. (It's held up by a rope!)
Or you could play the first 17 seconds of the pad abort test in reverse ...
ptfrd
joined 1 year ago
At 52:05, Stephen Clark asked about this. The start of Gerst's answer is:
We've actually flown it on several other dragon flights before this. This is the first time it flies on a NASA mission.
So, perhaps Inspiration 4? Presumably Polaris Dawn? And I guess the Axiom missions are being counted as non-NASA in this context, so some of those?
Before doing something like this I think you should ensure that it reduces the overall risk to the crew. So you'd need to have an estimate of how likely it is that all the parachutes fail, and how likely it is that the SuperDracos could save lives in that situation, but also an estimate of how likely this capability is to go wrong. For example, could there be a bug in the software or in some sensor(s), that causes the SuperDracos to fire when they weren't needed? Would the SuperDracos otherwise be in an inactive state during re-entry, and if so, what are the risks of having them active? Etc..
Those 2 sentences from Gerstenmaier suggest to me that SpaceX had already decided that, on balance, this capability should be enabled. Whereas NASA have only just reached that conclusion.
first operational mission for August 2025. But the agency set that schedule before realizing Boeing and Aerojet Rocketdyne would need to redesign seals and perhaps other elements
Not sure this is correct. I had thought the slip from Feb 2025 to Aug 2025 was only announced quite recently. Say, a month ago?
(Not that I'm saying I think the Aug 2025 date will be achieved. I'm 75% sure it won't.)
as far as I’m aware, they’ve done 1 EVA to look at the thing
Don't think so.
They do have access to camera imagery, but as you say, most problems like this probably need much more intrusive investigation.
How could I forget!
TBH, I mean that in the sense that you can't forget something you never knew about in the first place ;)
I had never heard of this concept before. Is it something to do with this?
(I looked it up because I was vaguely wondering whether broadcasting this would be too embarrassing!)
If the Boe-CFT mission had gone to plan, Crew-9 would have been scheduled to launch in mid August with Zena Cardman commanding. The article reports that she has just announced that her father died in August, perhaps about a week before what would have been the launch date.
Got me wondering how situations like that are handled. And what if a close family member dies just a day or two before launch? Or even less time than that?
On a related matter, I've also been wondering at what point the backup crews are 'stood down'. I don't think it's the very last minute. I think there's a window of time during which any serious issues to do with a member of a primary crew would just result in a scheduled launch not going ahead (as opposed to going ahead on schedule but with a crew member swapped out).
Damn, they should've collab'ed with the Marshall Mathers Space Flight Center, like I been sayin
(I sent two letters back in autumn, JAXA must not've got 'em. There prob'ly was a problem at the post office or somethin)
Plus the occasional ULA sniper wielding the SpaceXpelliarmus spell.
A landing leg failure, for example, likely could be quickly cleared because it is not used in other phases of flight
I assume SpaceX wouldn't make any big assumptions along these lines though?
I imagine, for example, that a worn component that could fail catastrophically on landing might also be at risk of some kind of failure during max Q, in a way that affects the primary mission.
Of course, there could come a point where you judge that so unlikely as to be not worth wasting any (further) time on.
But as an armchair observer I'm fairly glad to see a pause at this point before Polaris Dawn, even just a couple of days ...
“We’re just focused on recovery weather at this point,” he said after the announcement of the FAA investigation into the booster landing anomaly. “I think that is still gate to our launch.”
Surprising. Does this mean they have good reason to think they'll get a Public Safety Determination in a matter of days? Does the FAA work weekends?
P.S. If a landing leg realistically could, say, pop open at max Q, I guess that further strengthens the argument in favour of rocket 'catchings' rather than rocket landings!
Animation of a 'land landing': https://youtu.be/Cf_-g3UWQ04?t=1m32s